The Eleventh Hour
by 0muffin0
Summary: My name is Emma Swan. I'll get through all I can before they decide I am useless. I'll write as much as possible before I run out of time. If you find this, I have but one request. Do not try to find me. I am already dead.
1. Prologue

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **

Thanks for your interest in _The Eleventh Hour! _Please, if you have any questions or if I've made a mistake in explaining things correctly, let me know. Also, if you have any questions or specific moments you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it.

**SUMMARY: **

I'm sure you read the summary on the front, but for a little more information, you're in the right place. This story will eventually be Swan Queen. It's very gradual, but I promise you, worth it. Also, I'm warning you now, it's not going to make a huge amount of sense until a few chapters in. I was going to try and explain everything in one chapter, but my chapters would be really long, and sometimes having nice short chapters makes it nice to read. Eventually, chapters will be combined and later chapters will get longer and more action-ish, but for now, it is what it is. :/

WARNINGS: There will be a few major character deaths in this story. There is also a F/F relationship. Rating may up as the story continues. (And by may, I mean,_ will_.)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Once Upon a Time. If I did, I think I'd be the worst writer to pick. No one would watch it. But I don't, and people do, so that's a thing.

* * *

_Henry gave me this journal, along with a small strip of bark and some kind of ground up pigment. I've seen them write with it; pictures and symbols sometimes carved into wood and stone. He knows that I was brought up in a world different than his. _

_He's different than them, somehow. _

_I suppose, if I have no other way of passing the time, I will write down all that I can remember. Right now, I am in my sixth month of captivity. I say this lightly; I do not know how much time has passed, or how much longer I will be alive. _

_My only hope is that they do not destroy this. It will find its way to no one, and it will go nowhere, but at least it will be written. At least somewhere out there, I am known to have lived. I think that's all that anyone wants out of the world; to tell their story._

_That's why there are cave paintings and old ruins, right? It was a contest between who could make the biggest mark on the world. _

_Well, I look to make no mark. But I have lived, regardless. _

_My name is Emma Swan. I'll get through all I can before they decide I am useless. I'll write as much as possible before I run out of time. _

_If you find this, I have but one request. Do not try to find me. I am already dead._


	2. Entry 1

_Entry 1_

_**Before the Invasion **I lived in a small apartment in Maine. It was a quiet town, and like everyone else on the planet, I had a job that paid the bills. It got me going. Got me out there. I caught people who had debts to be paid and that was that. _

_I remembered hurting people. I hurt a lot of people back then. That was what it normally resulted to. _

_I remembered huge buildings—Taller than sixty men—that stood straight up out of the sky. Skyscrapers, they were called. They stood as high as the eye could see. I wish I could see them again. _

_Planes used to be more common than they are now, and were not a cause for panic. They hardly made you look up. They didn't make you scared. They were painted on the sides with bright colors that were inviting for civilians, and people flew in them (Everyday people!). _

_That was before they came. _

–

"Write."

Emma jolted upright and looked in front of her, where a child leaned back on his heels. She took a breath and set down her makeshift pen, trying to calm her nerves. "Henry."

"Emma," he said.

"You scared me," Emma replied, putting a hand to her chest.

Henry was the only one that spoke to her. She believed that they were something akin to friends now, even if she had no say in it. He was highly interested in her, but kept his distance. She found the kid a comforting presence on days that were particularly taxing.

Today, though, was a quiet day. The group didn't move from their camp, and she had even heard music coming faintly through her cage.

Henry rocked on his feet and stared at Emma through the bars. It was then that she noticed that he held his hands behind his back, as if hiding something from her. He quietly whispered, "Fire Dance."

She slowly came closer to him, stepping lightly as to not scare the boy off. (She had on many occasions when her foot scratched against the wood of the cage, or when she sneezed or coughed.) "Fire Dance?"

"Fire Dance for da Kadājit." The boy then moved his hands so that Emma could see that he had come bearing gifts, a small doll in his right hand and what looked to be some leaves attached to a stick in the other.

_Oh._ This must be a traditional festival for them. That's why they hadn't moved today. That or this Fire Dance was something prepared for her death. Which of the two, she wasn't sure.

Henry hesitantly stepped forward and promptly threw the things at her, too afraid to get too close. She caught them; barely, but she managed to grab onto the stick with her pinky finger and her index finger out of something of a miracle. She withdrew the objects and nodded to Henry with a smile.

"Th-."

"_Henry." _Another voice interrupted the moment, and Emma quickly hid the items she was given behind her back. The last time Henry was caught giving her things, she hadn't seen him for a week. Or, well, it seemed like a week. Her sense of time was beginning to fail.

"Ma," Henry said, his voice sounding like he hd held his breath for too long.

_Regina. _

Emma found out pretty fast that this woman was the leader of the group they traveled with. She was sharp, and not to mention smart, and the air she carried with her was nothing short of regale. She wore elaborate clothing; something that this world wouldn't see in a million years, with plunging necklines and interesting furs.

Yet, there was something very distinctly _human _about her interactions with Henry. She treated Henry like a mother would, but Emma knew that this woman was not Henry's mother.

Henry was human.

Regina... Regina wasn't.

No words had to be said as Henry ran to the people on the other side of camp, toward the fire burning and the smoke rising high in the sky.

Emma did not like being alone with this woman.

"I'd have killed you already if Henry did not seem to like you."

Emma smirked, "I hate you, too."

"Don't flatter yourself, dear. You'll be dead soon," Regina turned on her heels and walked away, leaving the cold to seep into Emma's bones and the loneliness to lull her to sleep.

Emma didn't like being alone with Regina, but she hated being completely alone even more.

She looked down to her hands, the small doll staring back at her with a straw face and beady eyes. The hair was woven with bright yellow leaves, and the body adorned with deep red ones.

She smiled and settled herself onto the hard wood surface of her jail cell.


	3. Entry 2

Hey, guys! I know I haven't really made a note till now, but I figured I'd say something. Anyway, this idea came to me quite literally in the middle of the night and I'm working things out as I go. If something seems inconsistent or weird, let me know. This story is unbetad, so all mistakes are mine. Updates will continue to be fairly short, but hopefully fairly frequent. I often do not update on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays unless I have written ahead.

That said, we're still on the upward slop of setting up this story. It'll get more intense later, after more is understood about Emma's situation. Also, the word used for the race is a variation of "Once Upon a Time." I didn't have anything cooler than that, so... A race called Once Upon a Time? Why not? Anyways, enjoy. More later today, probably.

* * *

_Entry 2_

_**The Invasion** began slowly. We've all seen those movies where aliens come and attack in ships and kill everyone in their sights. _

_It wasn't like that. It was gradual. It was like a plague that went through the city. _

_People started showing up. People that no one had noticed before. Political figures with shady backgrounds. People who had no ties to anything. _

_It was the year 2045 that it happened. The first one that really became known. _

_They called themselves the "Kadājit." _

_A race of human-like beings that were _better. _A race of humans that could do things that others could not. _

_Things like magic. Things like mind control and elemental bending. _

_They didn't just take the world. They enslaved it. _

–

Food was slid through a slot in my cell that was made just big enough for hands to fit through. It was the woman who always brought the food—A woman who seemed not to have a name. She was the oldest of the group that she had seen so far, and probably the fiercest. Her face was stuck in a scowl, and her hair was white and tied up against her skull like Emma's grandmother used to do when she was still alive.

Emma had taken to calling her _Granny. _But only in her mind, of course.

The woman didn't speak to her, and Emma had given up trying to get her to. Her last attempt had been met with her not getting food, and she wasn't about to try that again.

She received this meal once a day; enough to keep her going, but hardly enough to make her full and satisfied.

She felt the ground jerk, and she sat down as fast as she could to avoid the inevitable fall. They were moving again. She could hear horses in front of her, and as she passed Granny, the woman whistled and a horse eventually reached her side.

They were always moving. Emma wondered if they would ever stop, but Henry spoke of the capitol and their plans there, so she figured the group knew where they were going.

She hoped they never got there.

Emma crawled over to where her food was placed and rationed it—She'd eat what looked like what was left of a rabbit now, and save the rice and berries for later.

The rest of the day, no one came to speak to her. Her jail had passed a few horses with either things or passengers, but no one so much as looked at her.


	4. Entry 3

I know, I know. I said I'd have another update yesterday. Things got crazy busy. I don't even know how that happened. But I was going to write, and I ended up hating the way it went, and thus, this is what came out of that. I wrote a bit today, but it looks like I'll be locked in a crazy week, so I'll update when I can.

* * *

_Entry 3_

_**The War **between our races went on for five years. I was twenty when it first began, and I was a part of the fight against them. _

_Even with our advanced technology and bombs, we only succeeded in destroying ourselves. Our bombs made the air toxic, our people had to flee to lands that were nearly uninhabitable; places where the cold and dehydration took the majority of us. _

_By the fifth year, what was once urban was nothing but radiation and death. The war was declared lost, and humans fell out of contact with each other. Those who survived lived in packs, like wolves. We would hunt and gather supplies from anywhere we could find, sometimes killing other bands of humans for survival. I was a part of a band they called _"The Knights." _The name was stupid, and I complained about it a lot, from what I remember. _

_We were a group of bandits who raided cities no matter the cost. We did what we had to do to survive. Some died of radiation poisoning, and some... Some just... died. Others... Well, I'm sure that there are bandits still out there. We've run into a few, since my capture._

_Those days... I do not miss them. Sometimes, I think it was better that I was captured. _

_In here, I can hurt no one but myself. _

–

Emma put her makeshift pen down and glanced up to the sky, where the clouds blocked out the sun. It looked like it was going to rain, maybe. The wind had picked up, blocked by her leather jacket. Her hands, however, were freezing from use.

She gathered her hands in a ball and blew on them for warmth, hoping she'd keep feeling in them for a little longer. She missed heating. These people seemed unaffected by the cold. The thick clothes they wore reminded her of ancient times where kings and queens ruled.

These people, who had the opportunity to take technology from humans, decided to go backwards in time. She didn't understand it.

She didn't understand why they were walking. Why walk when these people had this "magic ability?"

Emma groaned and hugged her knees to her chest. There was a shuffle outside her cell. _Probably Henry, _Emma thought as she slowly unfurled herself from her position.

She was met with nearly black, dark eyes of a face that did not belong to Henry. A woman who could be anywhere from her age to God-Knows-How-These-People-Age stood at the side, her hands through the bars and outreached toward her with an animal pelt and some fabric.

Emma crawled toward the woman slowly, grabbing the fabric from a point away from the other woman's hand in fear that she would pull away like Henry had at sudden movements or proximity that was too uncomfortable.

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you." Emma nearly jumped at the other woman's voice, melodic and sweet.

She didn't know what to say other than, "You... You speak English?"

The woman with dark eyes laughed and placed both hands on the bars. "Of course. We all speak English. How do you think we fooled you this whole time?"

"I," Emma swallowed, "I don't know. I just... assumed. You seem like you don't understand me. You could talk this whole time?"

The other woman smiled and tucked a lock of short brown hair behind her ear, "Well, yeah."

"Oh."

There was an awkward bit of silence as the group continued moving, the mysterious woman walking alongside the cell. After a while, she took a breath and extended her hand again. "Mary Margaret."

"What?" Emma blinked.

"My name. Mary Margaret," The woman said, nodding her head.

Emma coughed, "Oh. Emma. I—I'm Emma."

"It's nice to meet you, Emma."


End file.
